Bound By The Night by Cynthia Eden Page A

blood memories
. So she had gotten them all while she slept. No more hiding. His shoulders stiffened. “You know.”
    Her burning gaze touched on him and said that she did.
    “Good,” he told her and meant it. “Because I don’t want any more lies or secrets between us. I was an idiot then. I didn’t know you, and I thought—I thought who you were didn’t matter.” But she’d gotten under his skin.  Into his very blood and soul. “You matter,” he said, the words too simple.
    A furrow appeared between her eyes.  “You expect me to believe—”
    He hated that he had an avid audience watching his every word. Jeez, could Sean not give them some privacy for an instant?  “I expect you to believe that I was an idiot.  I was bent only on getting my own justice, and I didn’t realize the cost to you.”
    Her breath seemed to come faster. Her eyes blazed. “You
tied
us together.  For me to live, I’ll have to keep taking your blood.” 
    Shame burned through him. “I’m sorry, I—”
    She waved away his apology with an angry swipe of her hand. “And you think I’d just let you waltz out there and face Latham alone?  If he kills you, I’m dead, too.”
    He realized the enormity of just what he’d done to her.  Like an apology was gonna cut it. “I don’t plan on dying. I’ll kill
him,
and when this is over…”
    “What?  We’ll stay together, because you’ve
bound
us?”
    He shook his head. “I’ll give you as much blood as you need, anytime you want it.  You don’t have to stay with me. You can…” He stopped and cleared his throat.
I want her with me.
But he wanted her happiness more. “You can go anywhere you want,” Jamie forced himself to say, “do anything you want, and I’ll make sure the blood is always sent to you.”  He’d be her personal donor, for as long as she wanted.
    Forever.
    She closed in on him and put her hand on his chest. Right over the heart that just seemed to beat only for her now. “And what about you? If you don’t get my blood, you won’t be the all powerful werewolf that you so desperately want to be.”
    “He also won’t live forever without your blood,” Sean pointed out as he crept closer to them. His voice was controlled now, but Jamie knew the control was an act.
I’m sorry, Sean.
He’d kept the secret about Sean’s parents for too long. But if he’d told Sean the truth back then, the guy would have gone after Latham.
    And gotten killed.
    Sean was just a foot away now. Shoulders up. Head back. Eyes too determined. “All my research showed—”
    Iona’s head jerked toward him. “
Research?
What research?
”
    Sean’s face reddened. “There’s…ah…a few mated werewolf and vampire couples these days.  When they share blood, they stop aging. We even found one couple that had been together for seventy years, and the werewolf doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.”
    Iona’s gaze came back to Jamie. So much suspicion in that gaze. He hated that look.
I want her trust.
    She didn’t appear to be in the mood to give it to him.
    “So as long as you have my blood, you get to live forever, huh? I’m betting your
brother,”
Iona said the word like the curse it was, “knew all this, too. That’s why he just wouldn’t take my
hell, no
for an answer when he asked me to mate with him.” 
    “I’m killing him…”  Latham would
never
touch her again.
    “No, I’ll do that. I can fight my own battles, and pick my own mate.”
    A mate that isn’t you.
He knew exactly what she meant. His fingers lifted. Curled around the hand that she still had pressed over his heart.  “It isn’t just your battle. He took my family.”
    “Mine fuckin’, too,” Sean snarled.
    Jamie flinched.
    Iona’s small, pink tongue slid over her bottom lip. “I-I know.” Her gaze darted to Sean. Jamie saw the sympathy in her stare, then her stare returned to him.
    “I won’t let him keep hurting and torturing. I will stop him.” Then, he confessed his